My brother and I are thirteen months apart in age. I am the younger. That means that I have the dubious distinction of being ‘the middle child.’ There are many anecdotes about the stigma of the middle child. I normally pay no mind to these stereotypes, however there is one that, uncomfortably, I must confess fits me like a glove.

 

I compare. I have this tendency to compare myself with those who are around me. I base my performance, my skill, my intellect, and my success on the sliding scale of those I am in contact with. For example, I recently visited the website of a friend of mine from seminary. Instantaneously, noticing the size of his church, my mind was filled with questions like ‘is his church bigger than mine?’ ‘Is he more successful as a priest than I?’ I noticed pictures of the youth-group in his church and pondered if he had a larger population of young people in his church than I do in mine?   Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t idle curiosity here; for underlying every question is an internal, nagging, criticism of myself and my abilities. In fact, it rarely matters the particularities of what I am comparing myself with are for it all leads to the same place. In these comparisons I always come up short. I am always left behind; always the incompetent, always the fraud.

 

You see, deep within me is an insecurity that I try to hide under the guise of humor or bravado. My ambition, drive, and youthfulness quite effectively mask the fact that when my spirits are down I often find myself questioning whether or not I matter in the grand scheme of life. Am I actually a good priest? Do people see value in me, in who I am and what I offer? Does my ministry make any difference to people’s spiritual lives? Have I helped anyone? Or, am I just a middle child trying to play a grown-up game but never fully making it?

 

I used to think that the answer to constant trend of self-criticizing comparison was simply to be a person to which others compared themselves! If I could just be the standard of comparison, then clearly I wouldn’t be able to negate my own ability or accomplishments.  The problem here is that there is always something I can find in the lives or ministries of others to which I judge myself having failed.  As I write this, I have this nagging thought that while I struggle with these issues, no one else does. I consider deleting this entire post because surely this will seem like nonsense to all those with a more steadfast faith.  Again I compare; again I don’t measure up.

 

This self-criticism isn’t just damaging to me on an emotional level, but also on a spiritual one. Each time I compare myself to others, and find myself incomplete, I disregard the uniqueness of the person God has created me to be. I declare that the ‘me’ that God has created is not ‘good enough.’ What is more, in doing so, do I not actually stand in judgment upon God and his work?

 

Well, that’s an uncomfortable thought. But it’s true nonetheless and we do it all the time. We deny the unique voice of our worship when we only view our singing ability as ‘not as good as so and so’. Whenever we say ‘I wish I knew as much about the Bible as X’ we are, in effect, casting aside the special way in which we witness and teach others the truth of God. Whenever I lament that ‘my church isn’t as big as theirs’ I actually deny the blessed place that God has called me to in this present moment, and I deny the force of the Spirit as it moves now.

 

Comparison always moves us away from how things are in truth and reality. Instead of recognizing the presence and force of God in the moment, we busily adopt the attitude of ‘I should be like this’ or ‘when I am like this then God will be present.” Yet God has calls us nowhere beyond this present moment. Sure we  can think about the future; we can ponder, we can dream; but at the end of it all we live in the here and now, and this is the very moment that God moves in our lives. 

 

Perhaps then, the answer lies not in trying to move ourselves beyond this moment, into some faulty place of recognized achievement. Perhaps the answer to our comparisons is rather to embrace the reality of who I am now; to recognize that in this moment I am who I am (as coined by the famous theologian Popeye), and that this is the precise person God chooses to work with in this moment, in this place. The death of my comparisons is found in adopting the attitude that, even with all the incompleteness of who I am and what this moment is, God does not call me to be anywhere or anybody else.

 

This is a freeing thought. Not only does it remove the burden of constantly feeling like we have not met some unknown criteria, but it holds the door open for the acknowledgment that God is continually at work within us. It reminds us of the fact that in the end, God is in control; and his purposes will reign. I can embrace the fact that on a deep level I am often insecure and afraid because this realization leads me to cling to Jesus all the more, knowing that his power working in me ‘can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine’ and without him I am lost. And, ultimately, who I am now is not who I will be in the next moment, or in the next year; for God is ever moving within me. I, you, we are constantly being worked and reworked; formed and reformed. God continually stretches us beyond the walls of our self-comparisons so that we may experience the freedom found through our identity in Christ. 

 

I am a middle child. I can’t sing. I’m not very athletic. I often have an esteem issue. Also, there are many people smarter than me; more talented than me; more successful than me; with bigger churches, wider influences, and more Facebook friends. But none of that actually matters; for I am a child of God. I am a follower of Jesus, and in this moment, God uses me as I am; and if that seems good to Him it should be alright by me.